Chong planned to sue the federal government for $20 million. In July the DEA settled for $4.1 million. Chong is on record that the whole thing was an accident, and that statement was likely part of the deal. William R. Sherman, acting DEA special agent in San Diego, told reporters, “I extend my deepest apologies [to] the young man and want to express that this event is not indicative of the high standards that I hold my employees to.”

It is possible that Chong’s cruel and unusual imprisonment was at least partly a deliberate move on the part of DEA agents miffed that they could not charge the engineering student with anything. Taxpayers of course pick up the tab for the $4.1 million settlement, and for the DEA itself, created through an executive order by president Richard Nixon. As the chart below shows, this agency has grown from a budget of $65 million in the early 1970s to nearly $3 billion today. Once created, federal agencies are practically impossible to shut down, however much money they waste or however much they abuse innocent citizens like Daniel Chong and who knows how many others.

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